C100: C100 Ninja Advice

ollywood88

ollywood88

Well-known member
Hi All,

Looking for some advice.

I was looking at an external monitor for my C100. I was looking at the DP4 by SmallHD the ac7 is too pricey for me.

I then thought of using a ninja instead for a similar cost [Ninja 2].

What are peoples opinions on the ninja 2 is th emonitir great, accurate colour, exposure etc.

Or the other option is save more and go for the blade.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks
 
I've got the ninja 2 for my D800. The monitor is only 800x480 which is really poor... I suggest to you to save money and buy the Blade. Rec.709 from the box (you've to calibrate every two weeks thou), better and bigger screen, higher resolution.

Ninja 2 is a 2012 product, Blade is 2014 product.


EDIT: if you want to go dirty cheap on a recorder, you should try the ninja star + used small DP6.
 
Last edited:
Hi Vik,

I thought the Ninja STAR and a small hd monitor but both even used would cost similar to the blade.

Blade I can get for around 649 UK Pounds and pay nothing for 12 months. I am selling my gini rig to fund it as I don't use my rig at all.

Good to hear from someone with a ninja 2

I think I will got for the blade.

Kind Regards
 
The Samurai Blade is a SDI only product. The Ninja Blade is the body of the Ninja 2 with the screen from the Blade with HDMI only.

I had the Ninja 2 and sold it for the Ninja Blade. The monitor is great. The Ninja 2's isnt. I use the NB more often as a monitor than a recorder. Onboard tools are very nice to and it's light. A little fat but even with two batteries attached it's lighter than my older DP6 and the color is spot on. The NB can be calibrated with a Spyder. I wish the NB had magnification. I might sell mine when the Shogun arrives. I do like the 7.1" size compared to the smaller 5" Ninja Blade
 
Last edited:
Hi Eric,

Thanks for the reply.

Is it an accurate monitor. I am swaying more towards the blade. As I don't want to have a Ninja star, monitor and mics and start loading up my camera, Trying to keep it light and efficent.

Sounds like a great bit of kit, Thinking of probably going down the ninja route. How are you mouting it?

Thanks
 
ollywood88 said:
Hi Eric,

Thanks for the reply.

Is it an accurate monitor. I am swaying more towards the blade. As I don't want to have a Ninja star, monitor and mics and start loading up my camera, Trying to keep it light and efficent.

Sounds like a great bit of kit, Thinking of probably going down the ninja route. How are you mouting it?

Thanks
Click to expand...

I think it is very accurate and can be calibrated. The Ninja Blade is all you need. I wouldn't want to have a monitor and a separate recorder either. I usally attach the NB to a small ballhead or to a more elaborate Wooden Camera EVF arm pictured below with the Zacuto EVF.
 

Attachments

  • Wooden Camera EVF on C100.jpg
    Wooden Camera EVF on C100.jpg
    135.7 KB · Views: 0
Thanks Eric looks great looks like the way I want to go.

I saw also you own the cinevate duzi slider. I have an older glidetrack hybrid slider and want to upgrade.

What are your thoughts on the duzi?

Thanks
 
I like it. It's a little too fluid sometimes. I would like a little resistance, but it's very smooth and really light. I don't hesitate to pull it out and snap it in my Kessler QR plate. For me it's a lot about speed of use. I dont have time to pull out tools to get stuff ready. It has to be fast.
 
I just bought a C100 and the Ninja Blade last week and shot a three day corporate training meeting that ended yesterday. The Blade is excellent, I just looked at the images on a bigger screen and wow, the C100/Ninja Blade combo is amazing, the images look beautiful. My only complaint, I am used to my Small HD DP6 so the slightly smaller size of the Blade screen is noticeable but not unworkable. Also, the sunshade on the Blade is more of a suggestion than an actual shade. I shot out in the African desert last year with the Small HD and the sunshade, made out of Neoprene, was perfect. I will be using the eyepiece with the C Cup while shooting exteriors with the C100/Blade, the camera and Blade screens are pretty reflective in sunlight. You can see an image but judging exposure was difficult with the C100 screen or the Blade. Other than those two nitpicks, the Blade just went through it's baptism by fire with this week's shoot and I am extremely happy with it. It eats batteries quicker than the C100 though so stock up on your battery of choice, I am using the LP6s I had left over from the Small HD.
 
puredrifting said:
I just bought a C100 and the Ninja Blade last week and shot a three day corporate training meeting that ended yesterday. The Blade is excellent, I just looked at the images on a bigger screen and wow, the C100/Ninja Blade combo is amazing, the images look beautiful. My only complaint, I am used to my Small HD DP6 so the slightly smaller size of the Blade screen is noticeable but not unworkable. Also, the sunshade on the Blade is more of a suggestion than an actual shade. I shot out in the African desert last year with the Small HD and the sunshade, made out of Neoprene, was perfect. I will be using the eyepiece with the C Cup while shooting exteriors with the C100/Blade, the camera and Blade screens are pretty reflective in sunlight. You can see an image but judging exposure was difficult with the C100 screen or the Blade. Other than those two nitpicks, the Blade just went through it's baptism by fire with this week's shoot and I am extremely happy with it. It eats batteries quicker than the C100 though so stock up on your battery of choice, I am using the LP6s I had left over from the Small HD.
Click to expand...

The Sony battery option is much better.
 
I just bought a C100 and a Ninja Blade. I found the waveform monitor to be over exposed on the Blade by about 20%. I had a shoot and decided to trust the Blade instead of the C100 exposure levels - as they were different - as a result my video was under exposed. I don't know how accurate the NB is showing proper exposure. Other than, that it's an amazing screen and it's great to be able to get 500 GB's from a hard drive in Pro-res is crazy!
 
One other thing that should not be overlooked about the Ninja Blade. Deliverables. I shoot for a few production companies who require increasingly tight turnarounds on their projects for the studios. One of my main clients owns a 5D MKIII that they regularly have me shoot. But the handing them H264 files that must be transcoded to a pro format to edit in FCP/AVID, separate audio that must be synced thing is wearing on them. It seems as if the actual codec benefits of the Ninja Blade may be minimal for many situations when compared to Canon'e excellent implementation of the AVCHD codec (see the other thread about AVCHD vs. ProRes, it is an eye opener). But I shoot a lot of green screen and I know that ProRes is superior for compositing and the real beauty is that they are able to send a hard drive with me on a production and I am able to drop off ready to edit ProRes or ProRes HQ files that have synced sound. That is worth a lot more than $1,000.00 that the Ninja Blade cost me, it saves the production company tens of thousands of dollars in assistant editor and editor labor over a year or two. That makes me, as a producer/cinematographer, a lot more valuable to them and they will hopefully keep hiring me. Not every decision to buy and use a Ninja Blade is solely based upon image quality. There are business concerns too.

I know when I edit DSLR projects, the audio syncing and running all of the files through 5D to RGB are time-consuming roadblocks to actually editing, it can be many hours of prep work on multi-camera projects that shot a lot of hours of footage. After the past few years of shooting a lot of projects with DSLRs, it is so nice to shoot with a proper video camera again and it is even better to shoot in a ready to edit format like ProRes HQ.
 
Thank you all for your replies. Great to see such a positive response for the blade.

Does it it have built in frame guides for cine scope? Or do you have to use them from the c100?

Eric - thanks for your views on the duzi looking to get that now. Looks exactly perfect I want light weight and portability.

Thank you
 
Thanks Vik, Looks great I think this has helped me make up my mind.

I will go down a test it first and see the results.

Thank you all.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top